My blog for LIS 9763: Social Software and Libraries

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Lesson 7: Social Networking

This weeks lesson was on Social Networking. It discussed how the use of pages like Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, Myspace, LinkedIn, etc. are prominently used in today’s socially adept age. The discussing about all of these social media communication medias in the lesson made me realize just how connected I am in this area. The only social media page that was mentioned that I haven’t tried was Flikr. I use Facebook daily (checking it multiple times a day, which is a pretty bad habit!), check Twitter every once in awhile on my phone, browse Pintrest, connect with some colleagues and friends on LinkedIn, utilize YouTube daily to view various types of videos, use GoodReads to track what I read, Skype to communicate with family (and this class!), and have used MySpace in the past (even though I do not currently use it anymore). Therefore, from the wide use of these mediums it wasn’t easy for me to decide which other one I wanted to try that I hadn’t already! I have viewed some pictures on Flikr before but have never signed up. This week I signed in with my Facebook ID and browsed around the site. I personalized my profile, found some friends that were already on the site and took the tour. Overall, I found the site would be a useful way to document the pictures that I take (as I take a lot!). However, I am an avid user of Instagram and would find it hard to switch from this to another type of communication for my photos. But if I had not already been partial to another site then I would definitely look into wanting to use this as a way to share my pictures with my family and friends. Other parts of Flikr that I enjoyed included the groups section, the galleries, and the blog.

In relation to how libraries could connect with their communities with Flikr would be to use this to keep galleries of current events in the library. This would be a better medium for a library that is not wanting to utilize Facebook and if they just want to share their photos.